Dark as Night, Red as Blood
by Vitalum Vitalis
Summary: They stared with weary eyes that had seen too much, eyes that told endless stories of tragedy. Why? They did little to deserve this fate; though they did enough to allow themselves this constant pain within themselves. The children did the worst thing they could in their situation, they survived. Sasuke wasn't the only child spared that night when the district was wet with blood.


_**I would like to inform you this is soley based opon a prompt by MidnightRazorHeart. It is her idea entirely, and I am letting my muses take it into a story. I highly suggest you check out her writings, for they are quite good. Please enjoy and review.**_

Buzzing, scintillating lights blind him, when he walks in, standing unsteady on his weary feet, and Uchiha Arashi takes slow, timid steps towards the orphanage bed given to him by those who were now termed as "saviors" despite the simple fact that they had not raised a blade against that of their traitorous comrade, instead they scrapped together the broken pieces of a fallen clan...

He sniffled once more, his dark orbs shifting around to try to scavenger exactly who was left. He thinks he saw Umeko before the ANBU whisked them all away, but his young mind couldn't be too sure if it was a dream or hallucination.

He hears Baby Hiwako screaming from where he is in the room, and he wants to go find her because that's his cousin, but they told him not to move and he won't. His mother always said to respect his elders, but the baby keeps crying. He hears the creak of an older bed as someone gets up, and the sound of broken, tired feet dragging against the ground; he wants to go and help her, but his body wails at him not to move, so he doesn't. Arashi whimpers as the baby settles down, and the machines beep around him.

"Arashi," Broken sobs fall out of the mouth of five year old Anju. "I couldn't find...I couldn't find Big Brother. I couldn't find Setsu!" She wailed. Arashi grabs onto Anju, holding her close as he wailed, his own lip quivering, because he couldn't find Umeko nor could he help little Hiwako, and all he wants to do is cry.

Slowly, Makoto stood on stiff legs, and she shifted to take her younger sister into her arms. She nodded at him, eyes full of resentment for what had taken place. She holds Anju close to her, and Arashi is alone in his space again.

 _Why would this happen? Why would Itachi-sama do this?_

Arashi tried to think about it without breaking down like Anju, whose entire body quivered with emotion in her sister's arms, and couldn't find a rational reason for it. He seemed nice enough when he had seen him a time or two, but to kill Mama and Papa...

He thought of Umeko, and finally he broke down into quiet sobs, because it wasn't fair!

She was a jonin and she should have beat him! Why did she have to...

He cried into the stiff pillow that he was provided with, because he was only eight and he wanted the familiar feeling of his mother's silk blouses against his cheeky, not the scratchy feeling of cheap plastic. He wanted his father to laugh with him again, scolding him when he made a mess, and praising him into the high heavens when he got good grades. Arashi wanted the life that that evil traitor took from him.

The young boy let out a wild wail, a broken sound that no one seemed to care for, because they were all grieving. Siblings held onto siblings, and everyone seemed to be shedding tears at what they had lost.

The pillow is snatched from him before he can protest, and it replaced with the soft body of an older girl, and his eyes dart up as a small hand rubs circles into his back. He stares into the eyes of Uchiha Hide, and she looks down at him with emotions seemingly dripping from her eyes.

Her smile is a stranger resting on a weary face, and she presses his face against her chest as she rocks, whispering incoherent words of comfort. She's not the oldest at her firm age of eleven, but had taken the mantle of leader since they arrived at the orphanage, going so far as to argue for more blankets when they arrived.

She held him close like he was an infant, and his eyes felt so heavy from crying.

It's the first time he's felt safe since the massacre.

But it's a _false_ sense of security.

.

.

.

Hideyo "Hide" Uchiha stood defiantly against the orphanage worker, her arms folded to support the weight of the infant Uchiha Hiwako as she stared up at him with less than pleased features.

" _What do you mean?_ Why will we be seperated?" She stood in front of the door that contained the rest of the Uchiha children, and next to her peeks out the eyes of Uchiha Tien, who stares with a dark look on his face. He's older than all of them at 13 years old, and he's glaring with all the might that a genin can muster up, her lips in a smug smirk as if he's ready for a fight

The careworker whose badge said Miss Hana, gave them a slightly annoyed look, "We're full. We don't have room for all of you." She began, but Tien interrupted by slamming his hand against the door frame, causing it to rattle and Hiwako let out whimpers that made Hide give him a dark stare, whispering into the baby's ear.

"That's a fucking lie!" Tien did his best not to shout, but his Sharingan flared to life to express his anger. "We're family. We shouldn't be seperated. Not a damn one of us should have to feel alone. We're a group; _a family_."

The woman stared into his eyes without fear, because there were ANBU placed through out the building to not only contain the children, but to protect against the traitor who had slaughtered their families. "You're families be seperated. Siblings will be placed together is small apartments. Others will be sent out to foster families. Like little Hiwako. She already has a family set up for her-"

"But she can't have a family set up!" Hide burst out in anger, and for the first time in her life, the Sharingan spun in her eyes, two tomoe in her left eye, and one in the right; not that she seemed to notice in her fragile state of mind. "We're siblings! She'll stay with me."

The caregiver laughed sadly, "Oh dear, no! You're only a child. You can't take care of a baby." The younger Uchiha girl went to protest, but Tien stepped in front of her, anger radiating off of him, and he quickly shut the door to stop the younger kids from hearing what was going on; they didn't deserve this, they didn't need to fear for their safety or where they would rest their heads.

Hide stood behind him, her clutch on her baby sister almost too tight, and she seemed dangerously calm for her current state.

She spoke quickly, "What will happen to those who don't get apartments and foster homes?" Tien nodded his agreement with her question, and they stared with their red eyes shining in the lights above them.

The caregiver took a nervous step back, even the ANBU hidden away not giving her comfort compared to those demonic eyes. "They will stay here in the hopes that new houses will open up or they will be adopted into civilian families."

Tien took a step forward, "We all must be seperated? There are only so many of us left! We need to be together. We have to be." He insisted, and Hide nodded slowly, holding Hiwako closer as tears threatened to fall down her cheeks.

The careworker opened her mouth to speak again when two ANBU arrived, escorting a young boy, his dark hair limp with the rain that he had been in, and his eyes stared hollowly at the floor, and Tien stared at him with dark eyes as the ANBU ushered him in the room alongside the other children. The caregiver was dismissed by the one wearing the mask of a dog, and Hide stood motionlessly as they did so, while Tien let out a string of curses.

"They'd let him in!" He shouted in rage, scaring Hiwako into tearful wails, and several of the younger kids inside the room whimpered, reminding him to keep his voice down and the dark eyes of Arashi (who Hide had soothed only an hour ago) became wet again as he stared worriedly out at them. The young girl hushed her sister, shutting the door to keep the children in and the words they spoke out.

Hide stared at him as he eyes faded back to the endless black they had once been. "Who do you mean?" She questioned, her young mind not quite as adaquete as his, and Tien snorted.

"The boy; Itachi's brother."

"Sasuke-kun?"

" _Sasuke-kun?_ " Tien mocked her voice. "Yeah, that one. They might as well have welcomed the damn traitor in himself."

Hide frowned, her cheeks puffing as she did so in a frustrated pout. "He didn't kill them. Sasuke didn't do anything. Mio used to babysit us together. He's a nice person."

"So was Itachi. We're the same age. I grew up with him and that older boy...Shinai? Shisui? Yeah, Itachi was a polite guy, then he does this- did you know Shisui was _drowned_ by him- and he doesn't even have the heart to kill a few kids. Want to know why?

"Because he's fucking with us. All of us. He wants to live with what he did. He wants us to suffer. He wants us to remember what the fuck he did to us and to know that he can come back and slaughter us kids just as easily."

Hide stared back at him, looking at Hiwako's face. Babies are so soft, She thought gazing at her little sister. She was tender with fragile skin that possessed rose-petal softness. Hiwako smiles up at her, a dimple dipping inwards on her round-cheeked flesh, and Hide swears she has never seen anything more beautiful than this baby.

She would have been an easy target, if not just target practice or a game. But Itachi hadn't killed her. He left her alive in their mother's bloody arms instead of ending her with a stray kunai.

"I-I have to believe there was more a reason for leaving us alive. Why leave Hiwako or even those three toddlers in there? They won't remember. They won't feel the pain of losing their parents because we'll be their parents. We'll be their family." She pauses to consider her next few words carefully. "Besides...Sasuke's parents were murdered too. He isn't Itachi. He didn't do this."

"No," Tien agrees. "he didn't. But they share blood. Itachi's blood flows through Sasuke's veins and just as Sasuke's flows through his.

"They're both traitors; or at least _that boy will be._ "

...

Uchiha Sasuke laid next to the window, his body smaller than most of the kids his age, allowing him to snuggle into the bed with some of the younger kids.

No one was sleeping except for the toddlers and that one dark blue-haired baby clutched in the arms of an older girl he once remembered from somewhere, though he can't quite be sure from where. They were moving them all tomorrow, scattering them like random orphans and not clanmates. The moon shined in from the window above him, and he kept his body pressed against the cold wall, half of the blankets on his legs, and the rest of it on Arashi, whom had a class with him once or twice.

The boy was in and out of sleep, and his whimpers kept Sasuke awake (thankfully), and he half clutched onto the brother of the traitor. Sasuke's mind was much, much too full to even attempt to sleep, considering what had happened not a day ago, and when his eyes shut all he could see was his older brother slaughtering Mother and Father like they were nothing more than training dummies.

The first few hours after he had left the hopsital, all he could think about was why. Why would he do that? Why do that to their parents? Was power truly worth destroying all of those bonds?

Even as he stared at the blood stains that couldn't be cleaned, and the white chalk lines where their bodies had ove laid, he hadn't been able to find such an answer, and he still couldn't find one now. He needed to know why. Not only why he did it, but why he left all of the kids alive?

Sasuke wasn't worth it...that's what he told him, but he knew that some of the others were. The two older kids were worth it, as was some of the prodigies that were the younger kids. They could have put up at least a little more of a fight.

So why? Why spare the little ones? Why spare the ones who couldn't fight back? Why?

He pressed his forehead harder against the wall, until it hurt just a little, and his fingers dug into the sides of the plastic covering of the bed as he fought off tears of frustrations. He wouldn't cry, he had used up all of his tears earlier, and weakness is what Itachi wanted.

If Sasuke truly thought about it, he didn't care why Itachi had spared them. He was glad to have some family left. He was glad not to be alone, but still, what he planned was not something he could share with them.

He had to isolate himself, because they would not only so them down, but may even befriend him. He couldn't risk the chance of him being like Itachi, tempted to kill a friend for power.

He pressed his head so hard against he brick that blood trickled under his bangs, and Sasuke swore on his blood (the same blood that Itachi didn't spill the day of the massacre) that he would kill his brother.

He would slaughter him not only for the dead, but for those that laid next to him.

Someone broke the tense silence when someone woke up screaming from a nightmare, igniting the entire room into a chaotic fear, tears and screaming incuring on the group of survivors. It only strengthened Sasuke's resolve. They didn't deserve this and neither did he, and he would avenge them all.

 _ **He swore it.**_


End file.
